Mercy Virtual Telemedicine coming soon to Northwest Arkansas

In case you missed our post about the Cox Home of the Future, we wanted to make sure you saw this cool demo of how some of us (or our aging parents) might soon be getting medical care.

During our tour of the Home of the Future, we saw this amazing demonstration of how Mercy Virtual Telemedicine works. The program is already in operation in Missouri, and it’s coming to Arkansas later this year.

We watched the patient take her own vitals and send them electronically to Mercy, and then, in an instant, she was connected via video conference with the “Care Navigator” (a Mercy employee who knows the patient well and is well-versed in the patient’s medical conditions and history) as well as a nurse.

The patient chatted with the Care Navigator and then the nurse, letting them know how she was feeling and detailing her specific medical concern. It was as if they were all in the same room together. The nurse advised the patient on what medication to take and then asked her to follow up (via another telemedicine visit) in the next few days.

This is going to be HUGE for members of the sandwich generation (taking care of kids and aging parents). We definitely got the feeling that telemedicine is the way so many of us will be doing medical appointments in the near future.

In Missouri, where Mercy has 500 people enrolled in the telemedicine program already, there has been a 50% reduction in trips to the emergency room. That’s an amazing stat.